


Glances of the Past and Future

by YorisJ_19



Series: Noche Oscura [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Human Experimentation, Other, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:34:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28688733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YorisJ_19/pseuds/YorisJ_19
Summary: Five short stories that serve as an introduction to "The Colors of Ms.Granger"Some chapters include unsettling imagery. Proceed with caution.
Series: Noche Oscura [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2102823
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Glances of the Past and Future

**Author's Note:**

> "And swift, and swift beyond conceiving,  
> The splendor of the World goes round;  
> Day's Eden-brightness still relieving,  
> The awful Night's intense profound."
> 
> Goethe, Faust.

“There are things even Lord Voldemort does not know.”

The sweeping gale stirred the shadow, its cloak billowing with the ominous rustling of the alpine valley. The ancient man continued.

“You were Dumbledore’s student, but I was his equal. I taught him deepest secrets of the arcane arts--”

“Yet…” The shadow began, its subdued voice barely louder than the dying whispers of the wind around, “He defeated you, and I… defeated him.”

Surprise etched its wrinkled marks across the old man’s emaciated face. For a moment, something glimmered in his sunken eyes, a fleeting emotional shade, yet as his thin brow settled, nothing but a skeletal visage remained. The shadow approached, the frigid silver of a starless yet moonful night traced his gleaming silhouette, and his voice, clearer and sharper, now filled the cell’s barren confines to an intolerable brim. 

“I have done what you have failed. I have honored our kind above the rest, as you once envisioned to do, I have walked further than any on the path to conquer death--”

A tiny yet amused voice muttered in the corner: “I now welcome it…”

The shadow paused, thoughtful. Rusted metal chains rattled uneasily under the whirlwind’s constant assault across the window’s narrow threshold, no longer connected to its prisoner. No longer necessary, so the captor deemed.

“This place was meant to break your enemies. I see that it has… broken you as well.”

“Perhaps…” The old man’s voice betrayed no remorse. “But it also taught me… Death was never the final adversary--”

“Yet you held the tool of his defeat!” The shadow’s words lost its perfect balance, its facade of detachment tense as a precarious thread. “The elder wand…”

The air grew pregnant with stillness at the weight of those words. A stillness that was broken when the shadow hissed:

“Where is it?”

The ancient man laughed.

“ _Where is it_?”

The laughter continued, louder, and more reckless. Crushing dry shattered leaves with your palm would still produce a more cheerful sound.

The shadow stiffened: “Tell me, Grindelwald, and I will reward you with a quick death…”

The only answer was the captive’s toothless grin: “My death will not give you the answers you seek, Voldemort. There is still much you do not understand. On the path to destroy death, I have only destroyed myself.”

The shadow was upon him now, its cloak swelling in the wind like a pair of black demonic wings. Thus two dark lords, one at the apex of his power and the other a distant, unpleasant memory, beheld each other until the shadow cooed with a suffocating softness:

“No matter… I will take what is mine.”

He drew out his wand.

“ _Legilimens_!” 

\---

One lone pearl shone among the endless and formless void that was Grindelwald’s mind. Soon expanding and overwhelming all with its dazzling light, a great underground chamber was revealed. A gathering of robed and hooded figures hurried on with laboratory tasks, while the hum of peculiar apparatus, the bubbling of cauldrons, and many murmurs composed the background.

Then someone, no, some _thing_ , screamed.

There are screams of surprise or pain. Then, there are screams of horror, like those produced by witnesses to a loved one’s torture but unable to help. Then, there are screams produced by the cruciatus, which could impress veteran sopranos with the true potential of human sound-making.

Then, there was _that_. 

Unfortunately, hearing it was just a start. It looked _worse_.

A humanoid shape was suspended in midair, its limbs pulled taut by metal cords. It looked pink and slimy since someone thoroughly deprived it of every inch of skin. Its rib cage was open, its vital organs were missing, and the muscle fibers that should enclose the front of its torso were meticulously peeled back and dangled carelessly in long, loose strands. 

Simply put, it shouldn’t be alive.

But it is, and screaming too.

Naturally, everyone avoided its vicinity, shunned to even glance at it, except one teenager. He was dressed in a handsome black overcoat with silver buttons that aptly framed his wild yet dashing face. An inscribed emblem: triangle, circle, and line, adorned his proud bosom as he stood contemplating his work. 

An accomplice of his stood beside him and mused his unsettled thoughts loudly: “I think we’ve gone far enough. This resoundingly proves your theory--”

Grindelwald leaned over and laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder: “We’ve only just begun. Prepare the transfusion.”

Before him, a long roll of parchment depicting a dissected human body unfolded while his accomplice provided him with another, and may I add, unmolested, body. Following the annotations, Grindelwald began a sequence of intricate preparations reminiscent of how the Egyptians would embalm their pharaohs, with different organs removed, treated, and sorted into enchanted jars. He then collected blood, bile, and other bodily fluids and organized them in a similar fashion with a precision that rivaled surgeons. Meanwhile, following an oriental acupuncture manual, his followers drove long pins into the screaming thing, now appearing like a fleshy and gruesome porcupine. 

Silencing it with a charm, Grindelwald declared:

“I give you _organs_ … The pulse of magic will no more be foreign to your body! Process it, digest it, let it circulate among your being…”

Obeying the flourishing of his wand as an orchestra would its conductor, the enchanted jars opened, a synchronized dance of livers, kidneys, and intestines swimming through the air like maroon serpents. They crowded into the vacant cavity, squirming against each other like quarrelsome siblings in an overcrowded carriage, their struggles ceasing when each found its predestined space. Then, something clicked like the awakening of a slumbering machine, and the heart laced with purple veins began a deliberate and dull throb: thump… thump… thump… 

“I give you _flesh_ … the sensation of magic will no more be muted by your skin! Savor it, dread it, let its breeze evoke joy, or pain…”

Slashing his wand in broad strokes with the sensibility of an artist wielding a paintbrush, the strips of flesh weaved themselves together like a tapestry while another column of pins fixed its front like stitches. With the creature’s every maddening struggle, the intricate organic fabric tensed and relaxed, rose and fell, almost breathing, almost living… 

“I give you _blood_ … the --”

Grindelwald paused abruptly, his hand frozen and his eyes aflame. His assistant forgot to drip in Komodo dragon venom, and the extracted blood had congealed. 

Grindelwald nodded to himself with a serene expression, and with a flick of his wrist, a vermillion rift opened across the guilty assistant’s throat, and as fresh blood was siphoned, the colors drained from his sallow cheeks. He dropped to the floor stiffly, bloodless, dead. Grindelwald continued: 

“I give you _blood_ … the conduit of power will no more be tainted by your birth! Pure or impure, blood is ichor, ambrosial might!”

The levitated scarlet sphere began its metamorphosis. Tendrils broke the perfection of its surface, intertwining to form threads, blossoming into roses and sharpening into thorns, then twisting, knit itself into a laurel wreath, tender petals adorning its outside while spikes menace its inner ring. Lowering itself with the solemnity of a crown, it rested on the creature’s head for a moment, dormant, then tightened like a noose. Its struggles intensified, and though muted by the silencing charm, its voiceless throat nonetheless prolonged a grating rasp that felt like nails scratching across splintered wood.

“I give you the _spark_ … tempestuous, obstinate, it can never be extinguished by mortal means! Born into darkness, but I say, let there be light!” 

Grindelwald’s wand discharged streaks of azure lightning, gathering overhead with a force of a maelstrom. Then slowly descending, it connected with the pins embedded in the creature’s flesh. Licking and sizzling, the raw elemental power enveloped the creature, probing for entrance. A thin layer of perspiration clouded Grindelwald’s forehead as he pushed the raging storm in, and as the last crackling dissipated, the creature was now silent and still, its unblinking gaze fixed upon its creator. 

Taking a few deep breaths and wiping away the sweat with the back of his sleeve, Grindelwald appeared, for the first time, unnerved. His eyes seemed unfocused, uncertain, while his tongue wetted his cracked lips timidly. This moment of weakness, however, hardened into a scowl. Opening an ornate box, he directed two sharpened rods carved of elder-wood into the air, pointing an inch shy away from the lidless, bulging eyes of his creation. It did not stir.

“I…” Grindelwald’s voice faltered for a moment, the emerging sound dispersed like a puff of air. He was gripping his wand stubbornly now, and everyone around him began shuffling away in dread as if some calamity that was poised to occur. But the resolve returned, his voice rebounding, mightier and more vicious, spoke:

“I give you _sight_ … to pierce the veil of mortality! What do you see?”

He motioned his wand forward with agonizing slowness.

The rods moved, their tips touched the creature’s pupils and halted.

Grindelwald closed his eyes. Then, he _pressed_.

When half the rod had disappeared into the creature’s skull, it was as if a string had snapped and all tension disappeared from its body. It dropped, ragdoll like, and hanged like a slab of limp meat. Grindelwald halted his hand, and with a great and unsteady exhale, allowed his wand arm to drop listlessly by his side.

Everyone appeared dumbfounded at what just happened. For a minute, and it was quite a lengthy minute, an undisturbed silence oppressed the entirety of the dark chamber, saturated with a potent aftertaste of what they had witnessed and participated in. There were no more cauldrons bubbling or equipment humming, only a steady, sticky drip that pooled beneath the creature, now evidently, fortunately, and finally dead. 

“It seems that… this process is still… unrefined,” Grindelwald murmured as an enchanted quill recorded his words in a smooth cursive. “The unfolding five-step was a great improvement from its four-step predecessor, and the subject demonstrated incredible… endurance. Yet the experiment fell short of its intended goal of removing the defect that excommunicates muggles from magic…”

“But, an unintended side effect was discovered during this process. In dissolving and coagulating, breaking and making whole, it seems I have gained greater insight into the methods in acquiring immortality.” Grindelwald continued, his eyes shut in pensive focus. “The Egyptian methods of embalming; the bloody crown of thorns mentioned in Christian scripture; the veins and humors outlined in Chinese acupuncture; the muggle philosopher turned alchemist Issac Newton driving pins into his eyes to gain higher sight… All of these point to the same thing, that aligning and elevating the physical body to an immortal plane is possible, but how someone is to survive this process remains…”

He sighed and looked up at the abomination hanging before him and made an ugly grimace.

“Inconclusive…”

He caught the quill in midair and closed his notes. Dropping it on a nearby table and taking off his laboratory gloves, he groaned wearily to himself: “What now?”

A multitude of things happened in that moment. A shrill alarm sounded from every crevice, signaling that the protective wards were breached. There were many swift motions, wands drawn, and curses began flying in every direction, all of it culminating in a spectacular explosion as the entrance of the chamber was breached. A dozen wizards, armed and ferocious with silver cuirasses bearing the Durmstrang seal stormed in the room, stunning and binding everyone in their path. 

Beside him, his assistant collapsed from a beam of red light. Grindelwald deflected a few himself, but exhaustion and a well placed disarming spell made him yield, his hands reluctantly sought the air in surrender, wandless.

As his wand completed its airy course into his captor’s hands, the conjured ropes that held his experiment in place disappeared, and gravity took its indelicate yet inexorable course. It fell, head first, with an audible, wet splat into its own filth below, and the impact drove both rods protruding from its stale, glassy orbs cleanly through its skull. 

Among all the commotion, this could have easily gone unnoticed. Yet something occurred, a forceful punch of solid air that came from nowhere and everywhere at once. Like a child being pulled on the ears by his reproachful mother, everyone paused and looked around in confusion, their minds buzzing with a sharp, unceasing rang from the invisible impact. Then they heard it, a demonic voice that oozed from the walls and the floor and the ceiling and from the most hidden recess of every heart.

“ _No Light_...” 

The creature’s raw, red limbs extended and retracted, its thin fingers clenching and relaxing against the cold tiles below. Shakily, like an infant just learning to crawl, its sickly appendages lifted its mass, its every muscle visible and flexing under inhuman strain. Then, slowly raising its head, it looked at its creator. 

It spoke again, not from its orifice but from the depth of one’s soul. Like the impossible claustrophobia of a fevered dream that squeezes and collapses the mind on itself, the voice makes you want to run, perspiring and gasping for air, to a mirror to see that you are truly there. A few people vomited. Most bent over in physical pain and clutched their ears or head. Grindelwald merely looked away, yet his face, for the first time, showed fear.

“ _Nor Darkness_...”

Its mouth with no lips nor teeth opened and like a hole and opened even wider, stretching into what must be a cruel mockery of, but still unmistakably, a smile. 

“ _Only Pain_.”

Then as if curious of the limitations of its frail body, it tried to stand… but failed miserably and fell flat on the ground. But it had a perverse determination and regained itself on all fours swiftly. Then it saw that not far from it was Grindelwald’s unconscious assistant, and beside him, laying vulnerable and masterless, a wand. 

When it began crawling, purposefully, the wizard who disarmed Grindelwald apparently saw and heard enough. He stepped forward in equal horror and disgust with his wand drawn and yelled without an inkling of hesitation:

“ _Avada Kedavra!_ ”

A blinding green light enveloped the creature. 

Then, it took another step.

“ _Stupefy!_ ”

Another step.

“ _Reducto!_ ”

And another.

“ _Petrificus Totalus!_ ”

And another.

Now every wizard was hurling spells against it. Purple, green, and red bolts bombarded the creature as wintry hail against a roof, and every one of them, futile. It simply kept crawling. Then some one seemed to reach an epiphany and cried out: 

“Shoot the blasted wand away!”

“ _Accio wand!_ ”

The wand wobbled and shot toward its summoner. Tried to, more accurately, since the creature caught it. 

Dragging its bony fingers back and cradling the wand tenderly before its chest, great sobs wrecked through the creature in undulating waves, its body seized by tremors that bordered on mania. It curled in on itself, prostrate and pitiful, shivering with such intensity that the air answered its every spasm with its own. The wand seemed to empower the creature and assured it of its end. Fanatically so, for from its pathetic posture, it rose.

It _stood_.

Its face was no longer smiling but distorted, its eyes bobbing insanely, its hole of a mouth voracious and obscene. The captured wand vibrated in its grasp, now pointed at its creator while a dry and ceaseless wheeze emanated from deep within its chest, where through the crudely sewn and translucent flesh the maddening pulse of its heart was bare for all the world to see.

It _screamed_.

The wand shattered into shards of ruined wood. The creature froze in bewilderment, and some terrible realization struck it so that it hunched over in the blackest agony and clawed at its own eyes. Finding the rods protruding there, it grasped them and pulled. 

Then, Nature simply decided that enough offenses were committed against her that day, so the creature exploded. It made quite a mess, indeed, and among the parts of its annihilated body, two eyeballs pierced by elder-wood rods rolled unceremoniously across the floor. 

\---

The shadow was silent. 

Cackling, the old man’s face glowed with the vestige of a crestfallen fire that burned so brightly in its greatness that even the embers could inspire. For a moment, he was no different than that headstrong boy from the memory, believing no secrets beyond his grasp. But soon that pride faded, mellowed by the wisdom of age and resigned to the contentment that he will soon unveil the final secret to life: its inevitable ending.

“What do you seek from death, Voldemort?” He asked, no longer laughing but suddenly filled with the passion of one who had no more longing for this world. “To cheat him, to defeat him, to conquer him, you are still under his dominion. No… I was beyond his grasp, and I willingly returned. I have gone further than you on the path to not to conquer, but to understand death, but all I’ve found is horror, _horror_!”

A burst of green light silenced him. The shadow dispersed and joined the profound darkness of the night. 


End file.
